20 Cool Reasons to Hack Your Apple TV

Tired of syncing? Create a server from your Apple TV and drag and drop media files directly on your Apple TV from your Mac. The SAMBA server install is a bit more involved that what can me put on this list, so cruise on over to awkwardTV's wiki for details.

12. Replace the HD = Hard

If your Apple TV is busting at the seams with all the content you own, maybe it's time for a larger HD. AtvDrive will allow you to swap out your Apple TV's included HD with a larger capacity one.

13. Stream Audio and Video Feeds (aTV Flash & atvusb-creator)

If your favorite video site isn't YouTube, the ability to add your favorite site's video or audio feed to the Apple TV is pretty great.

With atvusb-creator, you may have to update the codecs for MPlayer. nitoTV>Settings>Install Software>Install MPlayer Codecs.

To add a stream navigate to nitoTV>Streams. There you'll see a list of stream already populated for you. Cruise down to Add Stream to of course, add a stream of your own.

14. Watch more Video Types

You can view more movie formats on your Apple TV including DivX, Xvid, WMV, and many others. Don't be limited by what Apple put in the box - open it up! Start by installing Perian. Navigate to nitoTV>Settings>Install Software>Install Perian Now you're Apple TV will play all those videos with the weird codecs your cousin sent you.

It's not on the iPhone. It's not on the iPad. But hey, you can install it on the Apple TV. Navigate to nitoTV>Settings>Install Software>Install Flash.

17. USB Keyboard (aTV Flash = Easy/atvusb-creator = Hard )

Use a USB keyboard and mouse with your Apple TV - no more fumbling to pick the right letter, number, or symbol with that elfin sized remote provided by Apple! aTV Flash has you ready to go out of the box, for atvusb-creator, you're going to have to download and install a few files. Check out helpful how to on the Boxee forums to help you add your keyboard to your Apple TV.

Are you running out of room on your AppleTV hard drive? The Apple TV currently ships with a substantially larger drive than the original model did, but even that isn't enough for some of us. Like the keyboard hack, aTV Flash has you covered in the external hard drive department, while atvusb-creator involves delving into the same how to from the Boxee forums.

19. Twitter (ATV Flash only)

Are you a Twitter addict? Do you often find yourself ready to say something in 140 characters or less? Are you watching Mad Men and wanting to tell the world your thoughts about Don Draper? Look no further you can add aTVitter to your hacked Apple TV and tweet yourself to sleep with it. Just don't send out spoilers that you'll regret later.

20. Utilties(aTV Flash & atvusb-creator)

Before a hack all you can do is restart your Apple TV when it starts acting wonky. Even then, you're not guaranteed it'll be ready for prime time. Thanks to nitoTV you can restart the Finder, reboot the Apple TV, repair your Apple TV and even check out the console log. Just navigate to nitoTV>Setting>Utilities to give your Apple TV some much needed TLC.

Got a few reasons why you want to share about hacking the Apple TV? Drop them in the comments below.

Typo/Grammatical error in this article: "Why not make Apple's hobby your own". Should have read: "Why not make Apple's hobby your own"? Honestly, I'm in writing school right now and my professors would tear me apart for such an error in simple elementary level punctuation! Does Mac|Life have no editors? They would've caught such a simple mistake!

Well as a journalism student, I care, I'll fact check with my professors, but I'm pretty sure they'll tell me they care, and then they'll tell me the professional editors care and that any submission to most news sources that have rampant grammatical errors or amateur moves like photographs of television screens in them will be rejected without further review. And as a paying subscriber to Mac|Life the printed magazine, I would like to get my money's worth from them and have it be up to professional standard since I pay for it, and I would hope all the other subscribers feel that way too, unless we've all just gotten completely irresponsible with our money.

I've made similar comments in the past and the answer I seem to get is that such forums as these pages constitute "an informal environment" thus making poor grammar and spelling acceptable. Personally I find this to be an egregious excuse for simple laziness. I can't understand how any professional journalist would allow such errors to go out. I'm looking at a book right now entitled, "I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar" and can't help but think how such things shades my opinions of internet journalists.

One last thing, a personal nitpick of mine that has become entirely too ubiquitous is the beginning of a sentence with a conjunction! Do not begin a sentence with and or but because those parts of speech are meant to combine sentences and it irritates me to see it so often. There, I've said it and I will now attempt to gracefully concede the soapbox.

you're a "professional" computer journalist/reviewer and the best way you can manage to take screen shots is to take a picture of the television with a camera? You're a pathetic joke! Between the typos/grammatical errors and stunts like this I'm seeing increasingly, I'm starting to doubt the professionalism of Mac|Life. Is it worth paying a subscription to you lot if you can't even do your jobs? Are you any better than the rumour mills?

Have you tried any of the hacks presented? If so could you speak to stability? I've been thinking about getting an apple tv and putting boxee on it for Netflix support but everything I've read online says its not reliable.